The CONSORT trial has been in the news lately, with a story in the Kingborough Chronicle and on One Step Off The Grid. This happens as we are completing the installation phase, with the last batteries expected to be installed by the end of September.

Yesterday, we were on Bruny Island celebrating the install of 11 battery systems, as part of the world-leading CONSORT Bruny Island Battery Trial. The new batteries will be used this coming long weekend to help meet the island’s electricity needs.

We’re predicting the batteries will store and make available about 800kWh of energy over the long weekend. This is about the same amount of energy the average-sized household uses in a month.

We are pleased to report that batteries installed under the Bruny Island Battery Trial were used for support for the first time over the Easter and Anzac day period. As only three batteries had been installed and commissioned prior at that stage, we were unable to draw enough energy from the batteries to provide significant support to the network peak. This meant that there was very little effect on the use of the generator, which was required to be operated seven times over that period. The good news is that this provided us with a great opportunity for a test run and all batteries responded as expected. We requested support on ten occasions and discharged around 260 kWh from the batteries over this time. This is roughly the equivalent of ten days consumption for an average household. The installation of batteries is now ramping up, with another four ready to be commissioned. The next major event will be over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in June

We have recently commissioned the first battery on Bruny Island. This lucky resident now has a 10kWh battery and 5kW solar system they can use to manage their electricity consumption. There are several more systems being installed over the coming weeks.

We plan on using all batteries that are installed by Easter this year to manage the holiday load on the island.

We are working on an event in the near future to officially launch the project. We will post more information once we know all the details.